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Great example on how you can find your roots in unexpected places. So, most West Indian people know the Alison Hinds soca version of ‘Faluma’. It’s undeniably still my all time favourite soca song and one of my fav songs in general. It’s just beautiful sounding to me and for years I would sing the words to this song, and my cousin and I would wuk up in her living room or me and my friends would have random soca parties in my dorm room and I would never know what I was saying while singing it. One day an eternity later I was looking around the internet for lyric translations, and I discover it is originally a Surinamese Maroon song, originally recorded by Ai Sa Si, used in Winti (the African derived religion practiced in Suriname) for particularly water Kumanti (Akan) spirits. I saw Watra (Wata) Mama particularly mentioned for this song online by Winti practitioners but in both Guyana and Suriname, the idea is spoken more in plurals like “fairmaids” (Guyana) in general or watra mamas in Suriname. The difference is in Suriname they are also venerated Winti spirit whereas in Guyana she is a once venerated, then feared spirit, then turned cautionary children’s tale. Idunno how many times my dad done told me about “fairmaid” dragging people underwater forever and then expecting me to get some sleep after that. Anyway, in addition to this, the song’s cool because Faluma “a dove” in the aong is a metaphor for the spirit of African peoples and the singers are saying it was killed and asking who killed it, asking at the end “Mama a yea yea dunah?” Thing is Dutch Berbice near the Canje River in Guyana is near Suriname’s (formerly Dutch Guyana) border and once upon a time the two countries were one colony and the practices were very similar. However, Suriname has kept their African religions more intact whereas Guyana’s Comfa practices have slowly been disappearing because of harsh Protestant colonial laws that are still, yes STILL in place against them (even if it’s just symbolically. They won’t get rid of them simply to piss people off and to make Comfa practitioners feel bad if they turn their shit too African for the mainstream tastes) and because of demonization in general. Comfa has become extremely Christianized and alot of information has been lost. Like in Suriname, Afro-Guyanese once venerated spirits from “African nations” they named Kongo, Kromanti, Shango(Yoruba), Vudu(Fon), as well as Igbo. The accompanying Igbo drum rhythms I don’t know if they are still around and the song and dance for the Vudu drum rhythm is also gone as far as I know and have asked around about. But the drummer I heard from said he remembered the Vudu dance having something to do with a snake, the same as I read it was in Suriname. Wata Mama particularly also used to be venerated in Guyana heavily until the practices died out in the 60s because of a strict ban against them since the late 19th, turn of the 20th century. Which is a shame because Guyana is the “Land of Many Waters”. It’s sad and it got me to wondering if Comfa info couldn’t be retrieved from what information could be collected from Suriname and Guyanese Comfa religion revived in a more African sense. I mean that sounds mad dismissive but I ain’t about heavy Protestantism and special attention given in Comfa practices to British spirits (I’m serious), quite frankly. Anyway… all this always comes to mind whenever I play that song. That and the fact that it’s hilarious that Christian West Indians still whine up to this song during Carnival time, never knowing they giving Kromanti spirits they life. Lol. Excuse the rant.

[liligiworld]: Storytime: On ‘Faluma’ (via barringtonsmiles)

#caribbean #culture #faluma #alison hinds

See, the cement has never meant so much My hot head cools to the stone cold touch I look to settle my seed with the dust Brain, leave me be, can't you see that these eyes are shut? Enter my bed through that window I hit zero As guiltless, loveless, sins flow Through me...you threw me I descend smoothly My concrete bed beckons And can you hear me? I was born in seconds And do you fear thee? Would you steer me Towards the ground? No, no, no I was never scared The pain had made my vision impaired But now I'm free of care See, life isn't fair, then at least death's there To hold both hands And stroll through lands And as it stands The empty vessel of a man Can't be moved. It's not the cracks or the grooves But the pavement soothes. The pavement was soothing My body wasn't moving Brain was buried deep beneath the ground Fears would drown The pavement is soothing My body wasn't moving Pain was buried deep beneath the ground As fears would drown See, the cement has never meant so much My hot head cools to stone cold touch I look to settle my seed with the dust Brain leave me be, can't you see, that these eyes are shut?

- King Krule, Cementality, Six Feet Beneath the Moon

#king krule #cementality #lyrics #tune #sixfeetbeneaththemoon #2013 #mood

ebookporn

The publishing landscape is rapidly changing—as is the way self-published authors are viewed.

Twelve years ago, on the eve of the modern-day indie author revolution, few writers aspired to self-publish. Self-publishing was seen as a fool’s errand. At the time, many writers embraced the false narrative that only publishers and literary agents possessed the divine wisdom to decide which writers are worthy of publication.

It was a different era back then: e-books accounted for less than 1% of the book market; self-publishing was all about print. Without an agent, it was difficult to get the backing of a publisher, and without a publisher it was nearly impossible to get books into physical bookstores, where most readers discovered and purchased books. So of course early self-published authors failed.

ilusion-fantasia

#golden

#inspiration #james baldwin #nikki giovanni #1971 #SOUL!#ellis haizlip #interview

#catsoup #nekojiru-sou #animated film #2001

If you’re going thru hell, you just keep going (8)

#kingkrule #easyeasy #mood #music #tune

#mood #khruangbin #evanfindsthethirdroom #musicvideo #tune #music

6lacksoul

minoritiesinpublishing

In my time at Teen Vogue, not everyone was keen to celebrate my triumphs with me

That meeting was a slam dunk. We should have been popping champagne bottles. Yet on the way home, my business lead was staring straight ahead, slouching in her seat, seemingly weighed down by something.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “That meeting could not have gone better.”

“This is your ticket. I saw it in their eyes,” she said. “They would do anything to support you. It’s just, that would never happen for a White girl like me.”

I was so taken aback and confused that I asked her to come again. That this was her takeaway from our successful business trip together was baffling to me.

In that moment I felt as though her comment had just reduced all the years of hard work I invested into building my career from scratch — and this early success in my new role that directly benefited both of us — to the color of my skin. As if she had not benefited from her fair share of race-based privilege in America throughout her entire life. As if Black people in leadership positions aren’t almost always the only ones of color in decision-making rooms, working twice as hard to overcome the cultural bias that cannot be stripped from any interaction in the business world or otherwise in this country. As if I had not had to work twice as hard for the equal respect throughout my life.